Business Strategy for CPA's · Geraldine Carter

384 How I Stopped Working Out of My Inbox After 20 Years, with Lori Yearwood, CPA

February 11, 2026·34 min·2 clips

Lori admits she has worked out of her inbox for 20 years and still struggles to stop.

1. Business Strategy for CPA's episode 384 focuses on Lori Yearwood, CPA, and her move away from inbox-driven work using Geraldine Carter’s simple systems framework. 2. Geraldine Carter is the host of Business Strategy for CPA's, and Lori Yearwood is a CPA guest who has used the course in her own firm. 3. The episode asks how a CPA who spent 20 years working out of her inbox can build a process that reduces overwhelm and improves prioritization. 4. Geraldine says Lori has about 39 clients, two full-timers, one contractor, and roughly $360K in total revenue while moving toward a nonprofit niche. 5. Lori says her desk once held stacks that had been there for more than three years, and she felt the piles were “starting to just cave in” on her. 6. She says she had not read Getting Things Done or Inbox Zero, but Mark Kuka and Megan Rutkowski had already been mentioning simple systems during Accelerator. 7. Lori says she prefers to binge rather than work in small pieces, so she blocked out days instead of trying to poke at the project between meetings. 8. She explains that the goal was not just clearing piles, but creating a new process so she would not end up back in the same mess. 9. Lori says she opened Simple Systems, made notes on the training videos, and built a daily flow and weekly flow before touching the inbox. 10. She describes moving email items into client folders, an Outlook task list, and a OneNote “maybe someday” list for podcast links and other want-to-do items. 11. Lori says her inbox was at zero by Wednesday night after she moved everything out in one evening. 12. She says the physical cleanup took Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and part of Sunday because she had “a lot of crap on my desk.” 13. She says she sorted paper one pile at a time and used her children as shredding help for the stack that needed to be destroyed. 14. Lori says the biggest issue was prioritization, because working from her inbox made it hard to decide what should happen first. 15. She says the new system helps her stop thinking about tasks she might forget, because the task list now holds the reminders. 16. Lori says she is still refining the difference between tasks and projects, especially in Outlook and OneNote. 17. The conversation sounds practical and conversational, with Geraldine asking specific follow-up questions about timing, tools, and the first Monday after the reset. 18. Lori’s tone is direct and self-aware, and she repeatedly says the change is still a “work in process” rather than a finished system. 19. People who work from email, manage client deadlines, or want less mental clutter will get the most from this episode. 20. People who want theory without implementation details or digital workflow specifics may skip it.

As heard by us

A practical reset for CPAs who want cleaner systems and fewer inbox-driven days.

The episode follows Lori Yearwood as she tries to take back control from the inbox, the desk piles, and the clutter that had started to run the workday.

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Why you'd press play

If your inbox and desk feel like the boss, this gives you a practical reset.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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